The Luxury Of Health Care - HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! - Oh my God! Just yesterday I stumbled across a post on Facebook which I feel I have to share with you today. A 20 year- old Californian suffered from appendicitis a couple of months ago. He would have had to pay a staggering $55.000 for his short hospital stay had he not been on his dad's insurance. Lucky him, right? Instead he was presented with a bill of merely $11.000! Excuse me, but something has got to be wrong here! When I looked through the list of services and costs, I almost fainted. According to that bill, Room and Board came to a hefty $4.878.00, Pharmacy racked up an impressive $2.420.00, and the price tag for the Laboratory read $1.408.00. Two hours or rather 120 minutes at the Recovery Room resulted in a mind- blowing $7.501.00 which is roughly $62.51 per minute. REALLY?
What's more, Medical Surgery Supplies and Devices as stated cost another incredible $6.428.75. GULP! The CT scan was no surprise at $6.983.00. The Emergency Room though faired quite profitably at $2.703.00. The IV- Therapy was charged $1.858.00 for while Other Therapeutic Services produced another yet relatively petty expense of solely $240.00. Anesthesia rounded the bill up another $4.562.00, but the hammer of Operating Room Services slammed down on a humungous $16.277.00 which increased the total to an astronomical $55.000. All that money for an appendicitis which is still comparatively minor to other medical cases. I'm honestly blown away to say the least! Room and Board for almost five grand sounds rather ridiculous for just a few days. What drugs can possibly cost two and a half thousand dollar to administer to someone whose appendix got inflammatory? No idea really what Lab work all includes at $1.408.00, but okay. However, having to shell out $7.500 for a 120- minute stay at the Recovery Room is flat out scandalous and outrageous! If the costs for Medical Surgery Supplies and Devices add up to a whopping $6.428.75 before even laying hand on the patient surgically which ends up being another $16 K, I just can't help asking this one burning question. What the heck justifies the price of a rather fast and uncomplicated standard procedure like that one? Does that operating team work with golden instruments or what? Up to that point the anesthesiologist has not seen his overly generous share of $4.562 yet. So a rather trivial appendectomy equals $ 27.000 at that Californian hospital. I'm sure at a loss for words here!
The amount of almost $7.000 for a simple CT scan doesn't really shock me. At least, there's a certain degree of wear- out that goes along with this type of costly machines and apparatuses used in the medical field. The Emergency Room Service at $2.700. blew me away, too! What for, I wonder? Perhaps for all the many hours of waiting and sitting around in excruciating pain? Just great! And what on earth did they put into a pricey IV like that? For $1.858 this must be a hell of a drug cocktail! What exactly are Other Therapeutic Services? Administering the right dose of anesthesia is definitely not a piece of cake, but still cashing in a bombastic $4.562 for one surgery strikes me as way beyond any reasonable norm. Receiving medical attention and treatment on American soil has turned into a luxury only the richest can still afford. I just can't make sense of a system like this one when there is FREE medical care in many other countries and the system there is just as well staffed and as medically advanced if not better. Furthermore, doctors and nurses elsewhere make just as good a living as here. There's is doubtlessly a broad spectrum between free and fully- priced health care. Sorry, but I've got a hard time believing that all those separate medical procedures have to be that overly expensive! If people here - and actually most in fact wish to continue paying as this is considered truly capitalist - are willing to maintain this way of health care, good, let them do so. However, amounts like the $55 K for an appendicitis is just absurd and an absolute rip- off!
To all those who can't afford this kind of luxury, I dearly recommend to stay as healthy as possible and avoid pharmacies and hospitals altogether. On that note, may 2014 bring you a lot of health!
What's more, Medical Surgery Supplies and Devices as stated cost another incredible $6.428.75. GULP! The CT scan was no surprise at $6.983.00. The Emergency Room though faired quite profitably at $2.703.00. The IV- Therapy was charged $1.858.00 for while Other Therapeutic Services produced another yet relatively petty expense of solely $240.00. Anesthesia rounded the bill up another $4.562.00, but the hammer of Operating Room Services slammed down on a humungous $16.277.00 which increased the total to an astronomical $55.000. All that money for an appendicitis which is still comparatively minor to other medical cases. I'm honestly blown away to say the least! Room and Board for almost five grand sounds rather ridiculous for just a few days. What drugs can possibly cost two and a half thousand dollar to administer to someone whose appendix got inflammatory? No idea really what Lab work all includes at $1.408.00, but okay. However, having to shell out $7.500 for a 120- minute stay at the Recovery Room is flat out scandalous and outrageous! If the costs for Medical Surgery Supplies and Devices add up to a whopping $6.428.75 before even laying hand on the patient surgically which ends up being another $16 K, I just can't help asking this one burning question. What the heck justifies the price of a rather fast and uncomplicated standard procedure like that one? Does that operating team work with golden instruments or what? Up to that point the anesthesiologist has not seen his overly generous share of $4.562 yet. So a rather trivial appendectomy equals $ 27.000 at that Californian hospital. I'm sure at a loss for words here!
The amount of almost $7.000 for a simple CT scan doesn't really shock me. At least, there's a certain degree of wear- out that goes along with this type of costly machines and apparatuses used in the medical field. The Emergency Room Service at $2.700. blew me away, too! What for, I wonder? Perhaps for all the many hours of waiting and sitting around in excruciating pain? Just great! And what on earth did they put into a pricey IV like that? For $1.858 this must be a hell of a drug cocktail! What exactly are Other Therapeutic Services? Administering the right dose of anesthesia is definitely not a piece of cake, but still cashing in a bombastic $4.562 for one surgery strikes me as way beyond any reasonable norm. Receiving medical attention and treatment on American soil has turned into a luxury only the richest can still afford. I just can't make sense of a system like this one when there is FREE medical care in many other countries and the system there is just as well staffed and as medically advanced if not better. Furthermore, doctors and nurses elsewhere make just as good a living as here. There's is doubtlessly a broad spectrum between free and fully- priced health care. Sorry, but I've got a hard time believing that all those separate medical procedures have to be that overly expensive! If people here - and actually most in fact wish to continue paying as this is considered truly capitalist - are willing to maintain this way of health care, good, let them do so. However, amounts like the $55 K for an appendicitis is just absurd and an absolute rip- off!
To all those who can't afford this kind of luxury, I dearly recommend to stay as healthy as possible and avoid pharmacies and hospitals altogether. On that note, may 2014 bring you a lot of health!
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